What Will 2013 Bring For The Washington Wizards?

Wednesday Wizards Report

Will this New Year get any better for the Wizards?

2013 is officially here and the Wiz have started off on the wrong foot yet again. Last night against Dallas, the Wizards went into half time with a four point lead and went home with a nine point defeat. Yet again poor execution and bad shot selection hampered the Wiz and it turned into another loss. Even though Washington didn’t get their first win of the New Year last night, let’s take a look at three things that are hopefully on Ted Leonsis’ resolution list for the Wiz in 2013.

New Management and New Coaching

We have been hoping for this since the first week of the season, but Leonsis has yet to see the management and coaching situation like us fans have. We all know what Grunfeld has done to us these last few years and we all are tired of seeing the classic Wittman face on the sidelines. It blows my mind that the Nets can fire their coach after a 14-14 start, but the Wiz can’t fire their coach after a now 4-25 start. Hopefully Leonsis has an epiphany and see’s the light in 2013. FIRE GRUNFELD AND WITTMAN!!! Give us Wiz fans a ray of hope!

Get Wall and Nene back to 100%

Teams need their best players to be fully effective and that’s what we are all still waiting for in Washington. John Wall, our face of the franchise, has yet to play a minute of basketball this season but it seems like we are nearing his return by every passing day. He is now running though “dummy” practices with no contact. Now while I’m sure all of Wittman’s practices are “dummy” practices at this point, it is very encouraging knowing Wall is running, jumping, and shooting. Also we need to get Nene back to 100% so we can win more than just the 20 or so minutes he plays every game. It’s evident that the team plays light years better when Nene is on the court and he needs to get fully healthy so he can play 30 plus minutes a night.

I’m very eager to see our fully healthy line-up, and hopefully that will be later this month. A line-up of Wall, an emerging Beal, Ariza, Nene, and Okafor is what we put high hopes in during the offseason and we have yet to see that line-up play a minute together. If Wall comes back this month and Nene inches his way to 100%, we could finally see the brand of Wizards basketball we’ve been hoping for all season.

Win the Draft Lottery

I have had several conversations with people concerning this year’s draft and most of those conversations have gone the same way. We talked about how the typical curse of the draft/draft lottery is going to bite the Wizards yet again. And that curse is win the draft lottery when there is no clear cut franchise changing player, then be just good enough the following year to miss out on a can’t miss stud (possibly Jabari Parker). But as the college season rolls on my stance has started to change. Shabazz Muhammad has really started to come on and really looks like the type of player the Wizards need. Shabazz is a great scoring wing player who is averaging just under 20 points a game and has eclipsed the 20-point mark his last four games. The Wiz need a great wing scorer and I think he would fit nicely with Wall and Beal. But the key is to not get screwed in the draft lottery a la the 2009 draft which we had the worst record and ended up with the 5th pick instead of the 1st pick and Blake Griffin. It will also be key to have Grunfeld out from the decision making helm so he can’t screw up another draft for us come June. But we also need to win the draft lottery.

These are the resolutions that I would love to see fulfilled this new year and hopefully Leonsis starts agreeing with us die-hard Wizards fans. It’s time that the Wiz turn this franchise around so fans can be proud to wear their Wizards gear, so they can be proud to be cheering on the Wiz in the Phone Booth, and so they can have hope that a championship banner can once again be hung in the rafters. So Ted Leonsis, let’s get 2013 rolling in the Wizards favor.

About the Author

Cory Grubbs is our resident Wizards guy and outside of Blog So Hard his work has been featured on Hoop District. He has also been featured on Cincy Jungle, part of the SB Nation team for the Cincinnati Bengals. Here he covers the Wizards and Ravens.
Follow him @CoryGrubbs10

1 Comment

Good blog Cory. I would have fired Whitman and signed Avery Johnson to teach our young guards already. I think this team needs to figure out a way to trade for DeMarcus Cousins. Word is he wants out of SacTown, I’m sure he and Wall would love to be reconnected. There has to be some way we can work that our without us having to trade away our lotteryr pick.